The invention relates to an indicia carrying element for marking timber and more particularly logs, comprising a tag-like body bearing indicia and from whose one side heel-like clips project for fitting into peripheral recesses in the head of an applicator hammer for attaching the indicia carrying element to timber and whose other side is provided with anchoring spurs to be thrust into the timber.
Such an indicia carrying element, which is normally manufactured of synthetic resin, is disclosed in the British patent publication 2,075,464 A. This prior art indicia carrying element, which reassembles the indicia carrying element illustrated in FIGS. 1 through 3 accompanying the present specification, possesses a rectangular plate-like indicia carrying element, whose four catches or clips for clipping to an applicator hammer stand up from the four corner parts. These projecting clips possess detent projections, directed toward each other, in the upper free terminal region and these detent projections fit into a peripheral groove in the hammer head for temporary attachment to it. During attachment to the hammer head such clips are splayed outward elastically until the projections snap into position. Such applicator hammers are for instance marketed by the assignee under the designations 3-027 or 3-010.
In practice different synthetic resin materials are employed for the indicia carrying elements, as for example polyamide (PA) for soft timber, polycarbonate (PC) for hard timber, and polyacetal (POM) for pulp timber so that the indicia carrying element may be digested or dissolved during paper manufacture. In a manner dependent on the respectively utilized type of synthetic resin there is a more or less pronounced shrinkage during production so that finished indicia carrying elements in the form of injection moldings will possess different dimensions. This in turn leads to a situation in which indicia carrying elements with a high degree of shrinkage can only be clipped on the hammer head using substantial force, this entailing a considerable danger of loss of the clips due to a notch-type fracture of same. One known design for dealing with this problem is the use of hammer heads of different respective sizes for different sizes of indicia carrying elements. For instance, the applicator hammer marketed by the assignee as article no. 3-027 is supplied with two different sizes of heads for different sizes of indicia carrying elements. This system is however complicated, more especially if a large range of different hammer heads is necessary for different element sizes. The other possibility, that is to say using a separate injection mold for each type of synthetic resin employed for the indicia carrying elements also leads to substantial expense in manufacture.
One object of the invention is to create a indicia carrying element, which despite having dimensions departing from a standard size owing to properties of its material and its manufacture may be readily clipped on a standard head of an applicator hammer without danger of breakage.
In order to achieve these and/or other objects appearing from the present specification, claims and drawings, in the present invention the clips are placed on regions of the, plate-like indicia carrying element, which are in the form of resilient lugs.
In the case of the indicia carrying element of the invention the deformation is distributed between the clips and the spring lug regions. This means that the notch fracture effect at the foot of each of the clips is substantially reduced and this in itself substantially prevents any danger of fracture.
Owing to the elasticity of the spring lug regions the clips may be bent more readily in an outward direction so that even indicia carrying elements, which are really too small, may still be clipped easily that they can be readily taken with the hammer head from a magazine and then be driven into the respective timber.
The features recited in the dependent claims represent advantageous further developments of the indicia carrying element as defined in claim 1.
The clips are preferably arranged at the four corner regions of the rectangular indicia carrying element, that is to say, their position does not have to be different to that of a standard indicia carrying element.
In the unstressed state the spring lug regions are arranged substantially at a right angle to the perpendicularly standing clips, such right angle being substantially maintained when the hammer head is inserted owing to the elasticity of the spring lug regionsxe2x80x94unlike the case of conventional indicia carrying element, in the case of which such angle is considerably changed so that stresses occur which produce notch stresses.
In keeping with a preferred form of the invention the spring lug regions are respectively formed by there being at least one slot extending inward from the edge region of the indicia carrying element. This involves the advantage that injection molds only have to be modified to a slight degree and the overall configuration of the indicia carrying elements remains unchanged. It has been found to be particularly convenient to have a design in which each spring lug region is delimited by a slot extending in parallelism to or obliquely at a distance from the long side of the indicia carrying element, such slot having its starting point at one end of the element. The length of the slot can then be selected in accordance with the desired elasticity or flexibility in the spring lug regions formed.
Such indicia carrying bodies are preferably made integrally with the clips and/or the spring lug regions having the clips.
Further advantageous developments and convenient forms of the invention will be understood from the following detailed descriptive disclosure of one embodiment thereof in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.